NEW RELEASES (1.8.26)

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That Was Not My Intention by Frances Pavletich $30
"They had not spoken in close to a decade. And now here they were, resuscitating each other back into a story she thought they'd left behind." The story of Lola and Ben as they circle around one another trying hard to grow up. A scathing and satisfying look into the relationships we build and what sometimes happens to them. Inspired by: being a great friend, being a terrible friend, being too self-important to tell the difference, failing to get a person to desire you, using dishonest means to get a person to desire you, making a fool of yourself, the people we loved at first, the people we despised later, and the people we can never look in the eye again. [Paperback]
"When I read Frances' first draft, back in 2024, I absolutely knew her perfectly cool and caustic tone was a book for the times. It is a novel that cuts through vanities, desires and delusions. It is not a novel of redemption but is simply and ridiculously true, populated by a cast of furious brats." —Murdoch Stephens.
"It's a novel that will divide reviewers into the simps and the aghast... there is no in-between with That Was Not My Intention." —Brannavan Gnanalingam
>>Other books from Lawrence & Gibson.

Captain Cook and the Unsettled Afterlives of Empire by Tony Ballantyne $60
James Cook is one of the most contested figures in Aotearoa New Zealand’s past. Today, his name evokes not only exploration and scientific endeavour but also the violence of first encounters and the enduring legacies of colonisation. In this major new history, Tony Ballantyne examines how stories about Cook have changed over time — and what these shifting narratives reveal about the making of national identity. From Cook’s death through to Tuia 250, Ballantyne traces three major phases in collective understandings of Cook. The first, imperial memory, is centred on British authority and benevolence. This gives way, by the late 1950s, to a distinct national history, marked by J. C. Beaglehole’s influential scholarship and a growing emphasis on New Zealand’s own place in the imperial world. Postcolonial memory follows, bringing Māori perspectives to the fore and reframing Cook as a deeply contested figure in public debate, scholarship and artistic expression. Across time, Ballantyne examines how ‘competing Cooks’ are invoked in commemorations, political argument and cultural production — from British memorials to contemporary Māori protests, and from academic history to Tuia 250. The book shows how Cook’s afterlives continue to shape New Zealand’s historical consciousness and political culture, offering a deeply perceptive account of how imperialism persists in national memory. Beautifully designed nd presented. [Hardback]
‘This is a fine book by a leading New Zealand historian at the height of his powers.’ —James Belich

Counterfutures: Left thought and practice Aotearoa, 18 & 19 edited by Jack Foster and Neil Vallelly $30
Counterfutures is a multididciplinary journal of Left research, thought, and strategy. It brings together work from across Aotearoa, aiming to intervene in, and inaugurate, debates about how to understand and influence our society, politics, culture, and environment. In this issue: ‘Things can still be less worse’: A Collaborative Reading of Anna Kornbluh’s  Immediacy, or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism with liz breslin, April-Rose Geers, Arundhati Sethy, Lynley Edmeades, Sabrina Moro, and Rosemary Overall; ‘Barricading the Doors: Locking Out Disavowal’ by Matt Russell and Warwick Tie; ‘Modelling Mauri: Indigenous Ideas and Aotearoa New Zealand’s Covid-19  Response’ by Sophie Moullin; ‘Tiriti-based Anticapitalism? Contradictions Within the Settler Left’ by Dan Pickering; ‘Our Technocratic Times’ by Jack Foster; ‘Why We Should Write about Work’ by Alex Smith; ‘In Solidarity with Those in Labour’ by Irina Herb. [Paperback]
>>Read previous issues in digital format.

Counternarratives by John Keene $28
Ranging from the seventeenth century to our current moment, and crossing multiple continents, Counternarratives' stories and novellas draw upon memoirs, newspaper accounts, detective stories, interrogation transcripts, and speculative fiction to create new and strange perspectives on our past and present. 'An Outtake' chronicles an escaped slave's take on liberty and the American Revolution; 'The Strange History of Our Lady of the Sorrows' presents a bizarre series of events that unfold in a nineteenth-century Kentucky convent; 'The Aeronauts' soars between bustling Philadelphia, still-rustic Washington, and the theatre of the US Civil War; 'Rivers' presents a free Jim meeting up decades later with his former raftmate Huckleberry Finn; and in 'Acrobatique', the subject of a famous Edgar Degas painting talks back. [New paperback edition]
‘We have become accustomed in recent years to the revisionary spirit of much postcolonial fiction, but the ambition, erudition and epic sweep of John Keene’s remarkable new collection of stories, travelling from the beginnings of modernity to modernism, place it in a class of its own.’ —Kate Webb, TLS 
‘Counternarratives is that rare book of short fiction with an epic intuition of time, accomplishing in a handful of inspired, intimate portraits what many sagas only manage in reams.’ —Julian Lucas, New York Times
‘Keene’s collection of short and longer historical fictions are formally varied, mould-breaking, and deeply political. He’s a radical artist working in the most conservative genres, and any search for innovation in US fiction should start here.’ —Christian Lorentzen, Vulture 
‘Exquisite, and unlike anything I’ve ever read.’ —Eula Biss
>>The universal family plot.

Perennial Counterpart by Yongyu Chen $35
A poetic study in magical modes of connection over distance — how both friendship and reading are similar ways of being together while being alone. Written over several years of solitude, study, and transformation, the poems in Perennial Counterpart trace an evolving, self-questioning practice of thinking-in-poetry where long, reflective lines — evoking both prose and photography — brush against elliptical, fractured modes of film and literary criticism. Anchored by the author's obsessive reading life, this is a book where lyric inquiry becomes its own form of company. Here, the poem is written to remake its writer through glittering connections to a personal lineage of thought. [Paperback]
'Are these poems, or exploding postcards dispatched from the land of dreams? Yongyu Chen's exquisite Perennial Counterpart balances conceptual density with a yearning lyricism: always strange, "unintelligible to the end," but intelligible to those who speak the language of rain and flowers.' —Jackie Wang
'To be with Perennial Counterpart is to "river around" the intimate folds of its letters, lovers, loved ones, literary souls. Like the strange "fur that grows on a crystal," Yongyu Chen's probing language turns mixture into a beguiling poetics of friendship, a reverie for a more elemental and rejuvenated address to our unsettled world.' —Jay Gao
>>Reading, like friendship, is a way of life.
>>Life within language.
>>’Mouse Song.’

There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm $38
Mind-bending science fiction about antimemes — ideas that attack memory, identity, and the fabric of reality itself. An antimeme is an entity with self-censoring properties. Some are benign; but others, less so... These entities can feed on your most cherished memories, the things that make you you — and you'll never even know anything changed. And they aren't just feeding on us. They're invading. But how do you contain something you can't record or remember? How do you fight against an enemy with effortless, perfect camouflage, when you can never even know that you're at war? Welcome to the Antimemetics Division. No, this is not your first day. [Paperback]
"Astonishing. Pitch-perfect cosmic horror — and the pitch will break all the glass in your brain." —M.R. Carey
"The coolest, smartest, mind-blowingest novel to be published this year, and probably for many years to come. It is utterly unique, constantly surprising, genuinely unsettling, and a towering work of speculative fiction that may very well take its place among the best sci-fi novels of the century so far." —Blake Crouch
>>We need to talk about fifty-five.

The Common Good Economy: A new compass by Mariana Mazzucato $40
Our economic system is broken. The climate crisis is accelerating. Inequality is deepening. Public trust is crumbling. Wealth concentrates in fewer hands while governments scramble to fix what markets can't do, rather than to shape them from the outset. For too long, economics has treated 'the good' — whether public goods or the commons — as merely correcting market or government failures. This economic framing traps us in an endless cycle of being reactive, patching problems rather than proactively building the economy we need. In The Common Good Economy, Mariana Mazzucato builds on her ideas of the entrepreneurial state and mission-oriented policies to establish a new theory of the common good, one which allows governments and businesses to develop purposeful economic relationships, creating value and building spaces where human flourishing can happen. She argues that how we achieve collective goals — through collective action, participation and reciprocity — matters as much as what those goals are. The book provides a practical 'common good compass' to help navigate our economies in a radically different direction. Full of compelling real-world examples, from governing water as a global common to transforming procurement and finance, this is a rigorous reimagining of economics and a manifesto for a future economy that serves people and the planet. [Paperback]
>>Making people dream.
>>The biggest lie about Capitalism.

Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly
When a creative writing academic becomes infatuated with his colleague — the poet — his fascination soon begins to threaten his relationship with his partner, Michael. Michael is beautiful. Michael is safe. But the poet is everything he isn't; she has everything he wants. While he writes about steel and sex, she dreams about the movements of swallows. While he tends to his budding career, she writes from her big, white house in the woods. Meanwhile, his homophobic and spiteful mother — who cast a shadow over his childhood — is continuing to make his life difficult. As he is pulled back and forth between these two different worlds, his fixation on the poet, his ‘Kingfisher’, grows into something more powerful. She becomes his sole focus. He is hypnotised. But when simultaneous illnesses threaten to destroy the precarious reality he clings to, he's forced to question what he can and cannot take from someone. [Paperback]
Short-listed for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
>>Beauty in the messiness of being human.
>>Every box.

Knives and Spoons: A chef’s story of kitchens, addictions, and mayhem by Alasdair Gill $39
From working in some of London’s most prestigious restaurants to scrubbing fat from kitchen floors, Alasdair Gill’s life as a chef has been a series of exhilarating highs and harrowing lows. But so too has his private life. Taking readers behind the swinging kitchen doors of London’s dining scene, he shows us the major contradictions in his life, from crossing paths with Anthony Bourdain and preparing dishes for the ultra wealthy to hiding in drug-fuelled kitchen dens and a wake-up call that nearly ended his life. Knives and Spoons is a raw and honest look at the chaotic and often toxic world of professional kitchens, filled with fierce and unforgiving moments, but also a testament to the power of finding one’s craft and the long road to recovery. Alasdair Gill has inherited the writing gene from his father, A.A Gill. [Paperback]
”Incredibly moving, heartbreaking, savage, vivid, shocking, immediate and of course very funny.” —Camilla Long
>>Addicted to not being sober.

Natural Disaster by Lisa Owens $38
For weeks, she has been saying it will be their special day. One last, perfect day with her children before she returns to work after maternity leave. What's the worst that can happen? Unfolding across 24 hours, Natural Disaster is a propulsive, darkly funny and sharply observed novel about the absurd, frustrating, hilarious, precarious, bittersweet, sometimes astonishing challenge — literal, existential — of being a woman, a mother, a wife, a person for one single, entire day. [Paperback]
”I absolutely loved it. A forensic, agonisingly relatable account of the highs and lows and in-betweens of one whole ordinary day in a life with two small children. Funny, dark, absurd, pin-sharp, insightful, propulsive, unputdownable.” —Nina Stibbe
”Lisa Owens lays bare the pains, perils and joys of motherhood, all captured over the course of a single day. Hilarious, brilliant, utterly exhilarating.” —Monica Ali
>>Home is where the art is.

Red Snake, Blue Snake by Olivier Tallec $33
Red Snake and Blue Snake have been friends since they were small but that doesn't mean they see things the same way. When Red Snake says the sky is grey, Blue Snake insists it's blue. The cactus looks just like a ghost—or a mitten. With so much to debate, can the snakes stay friends? The two stubborn reptiles start their morning with a little yoga, watch the clouds, bicker about this and that, narrowly escape being captured by a snake charmer, and end the day very nearly agreeing on something. [Hardback]
>>Look inside!
>>Look through the book.